


Collecting Feathers and Finding Wings

by knowyourincantations



Series: Femslash February 2019 [21]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Battle of Hogwarts, Don't copy to another site, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2019, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Era, Minor Canonical Cho/Cedric, Minor Canonical Cho/Harry, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Cho, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 03:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17890532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knowyourincantations/pseuds/knowyourincantations
Summary: Or 'Five times Cho found feathers she couldn't explain, and one time she finally saw the wings they came from'.





	Collecting Feathers and Finding Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Femslash February 2019, Day 21 prompt 'Wings.
> 
> A note on the timeline, just a reminder that Cho was one year ahead of Harry, so '4th year' was her 5th year. I added what year it was for Cho to each part for clarity.

**1 - While Flying - Fifth Year**

It was the middle of the Tri-Wizard Tournament and Fleur had been showing up more and more often to drag Cho away to spend time with her. It still filled Cho with exhilaration that such a sophisticated girl wanted to spend time with her. That she didn’t have to admire Fleur from afar like everyone else.

Cho had suggested they go flying before, but Fleur admitted she had never learned more than the basics at Beauxbatons, claiming discomfort in the air. She didn’t mind watching Cho fly sometimes, though, so it wasn’t really a problem.

On one cold but sunny Day in January, Cho forgot and asked if she wanted to fly with her, but Fleur said yes.

“People are talking, you know,” Marietta grumbled when she let Cho borrow her broom for Fleur to use.

“Let them talk,” Cho scoffed, barely listening to Marietta in her excitement to go meet Fleur on the grounds.

As she left, Marietta said something about ‘the way it looked’ but Cho didn’t bother replying. She couldn’t care less that Fleur was the Beauxbatons Champion. Spending time with her wasn’t a betrayal of Harry or Cedric like most Hogwarts students seemed to think.

The end of the school year was looming large even though it was still a few months away. She was horribly aware that once Fleur returned to France she would probably never see her again. They might exchange letters, but even that probably wouldn’t last. She had to make the most of their time together while she could.

“You look excited,” Fleur said when they met up, greeting Cho with her customary kisses to her cheeks.

Even if she knew it was something all the Beauxbatons students did when greeting each other, it still made Cho’s cheeks burn and her stomach flutter a little. Every time Fleur greeted her that way she only seemed more sophisticated. Each kiss brought a delicate waft of perfume with her that lingered around Cho for a few delightful minutes. Cho didn’t know any other girls that wore perfume, it only made Fleur seem even more above the rest of them.

“Are you sure you want to fly?” Cho asked as they wandered the grounds. The Quidditch field was off limits, so she had been flying over near the forest and lake.

Fleur linked their free arms together as they walked. “Of course. You talk of flying as if it is the most wonderful thing in the world,” she said, her accent thicker like it sometimes got when she was excited or nervous. “I wish to see it this way also.”

“We can just fly low today,” Cho said, thinking and planning. If it turned out well, maybe Fleur would fly with her more often. Even though there was no Quidditch during the Tournament, and thus no training, she had been flying three or four times a week anyway. For fun and to keep her skill level up. As much as she loved flying, sometimes she did get lonely up in the air by herself. Sometimes Cedric or Marietta joined her, but not as often as she’d have liked.

“Always so thoughtful,” Fleur said, pressing another feather-light kiss to her cheek.

When they reached an open area of the grounds with the lake in one direction and the forest in another, they unlinked arms. Cho missed the warmth of her immediately. Even though it was a rare sunny day, the sun wasn’t giving off enough warmth to beat the chill in the air.

“I can’t believe Krum swims in this weather,” she muttered. Like many of the other Quidditch players, she’d done a fair bit of Krum-stalking in the weeks after he’d arrived. She’d since decided he was mad and lost interest. He’d said something about swimming in the cold being good for something, but nothing would get her in the lake in winter.

Fleur scoffed as she mounted Marietta’s broom. “Silly boy.”

Cho corrected her grip without thinking, but Fleur hummed and thanked her. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, but her shivering could have been shaking.

“Nervous?” Cho asked quietly.

Fleur gave her a soft smile. “A little. Flying always makes me nervous.”

Cho resisted the urge to hug her. As tactile as Fleur was, they hadn’t really known each other long enough for her to do something like that so suddenly.

“I know some good levitation charms and I have my wand on me. I’ll catch you if you fall.”

“I see I am in good hands,” Fleur said as Cho mounted her own broom and they took off slowly.

***

Fleur really wasn’t as bad as she’d implied. Her flight was a bit jerky rather than smooth, and only got worse the higher she went, but they managed to have a lovely, lazy flight along the edge of the lake. They stayed close enough to talk, and close enough that Cho could, with very little effort or manoeuvring, reach out and grab her or her broom in a pinch.

Everything was going so smoothly that she focused more on Fleur than she should have.

They were just returning along the lake to where they’d began when an owl appeared from nowhere, flying fast between them. Well used to such distractions, an owl was nothing like a bludger after all, Cho righted herself easily even though she’d been startled.

Fleur, on the other hand, startled so badly she cried out and lost control of her broom.

Before Cho could even react or comprehend what was happening, a flurry of feathers burst out of nowhere and blocked her line of sight to Fleur. They disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, and once they did she found Fleur sitting on the ground, her broom hovering near her.

Her heart in her throat, Cho dove down and rapidly dismounted, so fast and hard that pain laced up her legs from the impact.

“Are you okay?” she asked, falling to her knees beside Fleur and looking her over.

The pink in her cheeks from the cold was gone. She was deathly pale and staring out ahead of her without seeing. Her fingers were digging into the earth like claws, but she didn’t appear to have any scratches and bruises from a rough landing.

“What happened?” Cho asked, reaching out and carefully cupping Fleur’s face to turn it towards her.

“I am alright,” Fleur said, her gaze sharpening along with her tone as she appeared to snap out of her daze. She scrambled to her feet. “I must go.”

“What? Wait!”

But she was too late, Fleur was already hurrying away across the grounds in the direction of the Beauxbatons carriage.

Cho stared after her for a moment before sighing and collecting the two brooms before they could float away. She struggled to comprehend what happened, and wondered for a moment if Fleur had collided with the owl in the air.

But as she looked around and spied a feather caught in the frosty grass, she could see it was larger than that of an owl.

She picked it up and slipped it into her pocket. She’d figure it out later, and just hoped that the unfortunate end to their flight didn’t ruin the friendship they were building.

**2 - With Care – Fifth Year**

The students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang hadn’t left yet, and Fleur had been by Cho’s side almost constantly since the moment Harry had brought Cedric’s body back.

Even if, after the ball and after a few visits to Hogsmeade together, Cho and Cedric and decided they were better suited as friends, the loss of him hit her so hard she barely felt she could breathe.

It was just so unexpected. So pointless. Needless.

The tournament was supposed to be fun, she had been cheering for Fleur and Cedric but then Cedric was dead and Harry was talking about He Who Must Not Be Named being back and Cho couldn’t seem to stop herself from crying. It didn’t help that soon Fleur would be gone too.

Although there had been some distance between them since that awful day they’d flown together, Fleur had not hesitated to seek her out and talk to her, or just hold her and let her cry. Sometimes she brought her pastries and little cakes. Sometimes she pulled her from the Ravenclaw common room and took her for walks on the grounds, their arms or hands firmly linked.

One day they found their way down to where the maze had been. All traces of it were now gone but the presence of it somehow remained, like a heaviness in the air.

For a dark moment, Cho wondered if she would ever be able to fly there again. She would never fly with Cedric again, and she wasn’t sure she would fly without ever thinking of him and missing him. He had often joined her on her flights that year after that dreadful flight with Fleur. Sometimes they’d even played one-on-one seeker matches with a practice snitch. Never again.

Unable to stop it, she started crying and sobbing again.

Fleur murmured to her in French. Cho couldn’t understand, but the sound was soothing. Arms wrapped around her and she leaned into it, feeling another wave of sadness hit her with the knowledge Fleur would soon be gone too.

Something soft brushed against her face and neck, and she held Fleur back tighter.

It was only later, once she returned to her dormitory, that she found two white feathers in her hair, tucked carefully behind her ear as if placed there on purpose.

**3 - With a Kiss – Between Fifth and Sixth Year**

It was the middle of summer and Cho finally seemed to be finding some sort of balance. While still finding herself sad at the most unexpected moments, she thought she was finally moving past the shock of Cedric’s death.

That was when Fleur came to visit.

When her mother said she had a visitor, she expected Marietta. She’d been writing to Cho for weeks with promises that she’d visit, but Cho kept putting her off. The last thing she wanted to was to cry in front of her again. Marietta never did understand why she was hit so hard by Cedric’s death when they’d decided months before to be no more than friends.

But it wasn’t Marietta at the door. Cho stared dumbly at Fleur, who smiled back as radiantly as always.

It was only when Cho failed to say something that some of that radiance faded.

“I should have owled ahead,” Fleur murmured, her posture shifting to something so visibly anxious it shocked Cho out of her stupor.

“No, no,” she said in a rush, moving forward and hugging her so forcefully she almost knocked them right off the front step.

Fleur squeezed her back just as tightly. She laughed softly and then extricated herself to plant a soft kiss to each of Cho’s cheeks.

“I was in England for a job interview and thought it would be no better time to see you again, and I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said, looking her over. Cho felt her cheeks heat under the scrutiny. She had been lounging about in some very ugly clothing. “You look good,” Fleur finally said. “I am glad to see you happier than when I saw you last.”

Cho ushered her inside and up to her room rather than respond to that. Enough time had passed that she was horribly embarrassed by how weepy she had been around Fleur in those last few weeks of the school year. She’d thoroughly ruined their last moments together.

“Where are you applying?” she asked, looking around her room and cringing at how messy it was. She hadn’t even made her bed.

“Gringotts,” Fleur replied, looking around curiously. “I want to be a Curse-Breaker and have applied to be an apprentice.”

“Really?” Cho kicked some laundry under her bed while Cho looked at her Quidditch posters.

Even outside of the elegant Beauxbatons uniform, Fleur always dressed so beautifully. She was like a model in Cho’s messy bedroom, and Cho wished she’d taken her to any other room in the house.

Fleur was about to respond when she made a strange sound in her throat and crossed the room to Cho’s bookshelves.

“You collect feathers?” she asked, reaching out and touching one of the longest and strangest feathers Cho had.

Cho’s face burned. How could she explain that feathers reminded her of Fleur? The size of her collection, dozens per shelf, fixed in place by magic so they didn’t flutter away at the first breeze, was a bit creepy in that light. It reminded her of the times she had found feathers around Fleur and always wondered where they came from. If maybe Fleur collected them as well and carried some with her. They were the ones she couldn’t identify, and her favourite ones. They were so soft she found herself stroking them mindlessly whenever she was near her bookshelves.

“Maybe it’s because I like flying,” she deflected. “I once thought about becoming an Animagus, but I think I’d be too disappointed if I didn’t turn into a bird of some sort.”

Fleur hummed again, her fingers finding each of the strange feathers while all but ignoring the rest.

“I have avoided it for a similar reason,” she said softly. “I do not wish to become an animal I do not want to be.”

They felt into an odd silence, and the longer Fleur looked over her collection of feathers the more uncomfortable and fidgety Cho felt.

“How long are you in the country for?” she asked, moving over to the window and hoping Fleur would follow and leave the feathers alone.

It worked, and Fleur joined her by the open window. The breeze ruffled her hair gently and spread around the delicate scent of her perfume. It was still the same, and Cho had an embarrassing urge to lean closer and breathe it in.

“I should hear back about the job within a week they said,” Fleur said, leaning on the windowsill and looking out over the back garden. Cho could see her mum down there and hoped she wouldn’t look up and say something to embarrass her. It was bad enough she’d answered the door covered in dirt from the garden. “I am already looking at some flats in case I get it. I will be able to visit you each summer if you like.”

The look she gave Cho was anxious, like she had been at the door when Cho had taken to long to say something. Like she actually thought Cho might not want her around.

“That would be great,” she said quickly.

Fleur smiled brightly. “I will take you out for a meal to celebrate if I get the job,” she said decisively. “Though you will have to give me ideas of where to go.”

Cho nodded and masked her unease. They never went out much as a family. In fact, now that she thought about it, she didn’t even have anything nice to wear out aside from the dress she’d worn to the Yule ball, and Fleur had seen that already. Whatever else she chose, she’d look horribly plain next to Fleur.

“Do you think your parents would mind?” Fleur asked, wandering away from the window and looking at the feathers on her bookshelves again.

Seeing her by the feathers again made Cho’s stomach flutter. She’d already explained them away, but the idea that Fleur might figure out Cho collected them as reminders of her made her face heat up and her hands shake. She wanted to rush over and get between Fleur and the shelves to stop her from looking at them.

“No, they already know we’re friends,” she said. “And they let me and Marietta go out all the time.”

Fleur turned to her but she was still touching one of the feathers. “Marietta is the girl whose broom I borrowed that time?”

Cho nodded. “My best friend. We went to school together before Hogwarts.”

With a nod, Fleur looked around, as if finally noticing the pictures Cho had of them together. “I will work around your summer plans with her.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said in a rush. “I’ll see her again at school. I never get to see you now, she’ll understand.” Or at least, she wouldn’t be able to claim Cho would make people talk for spending time with a competing Champion now the Tournament was long over.

Fleur moved away from the feathers and stood in front of her. “Maybe if I get this job we will see each other more often?” she said, though it sounded more like a question. “I would even be able to come to Hogsmeade sometimes during the year. We could meet up in Hogsmeade for tea and catch up?”

The idea almost made Cho do something stupid, like jump up and down. She had really thought she’d never see Fleur again after the Tournament, but the thought of spending time with her again was thrilling in a way that was totally embarrassing.

“Definitely!” she said.

Fleur smiled. “I wish I could stay longer, but I have to view another flat soon. I just wanted to come and see you again. I am happy to know it won’t be for the last time.”

Cho’s stomach sank. She’d only just got there. “But we can see each other again soon?”

“Of course, now that I know I am welcome,” Fleur said, almost with a laugh. “Now, close your eyes a moment, I have another surprise.”

When Cho closed her eyes a fresh burst of Fleur’s perfume wafted over her and a soft kiss was pressed to her lips. She opened her eyes in surprise as Fleur moved away, and found Fleur holding a feather. A long white one similar to the other unidentified ones she had.

“Another feather for your collection,” Fleur said, her cheeks as pink as Cho’s felt.

With a shaking hand and distracted mind, Cho took the feather. Fleur left soon after, and Cho could scarcely remember their parting words.

All she could think of was that soft kiss.

**4 - With a Confession – Seventh Year**

“Cho?”

“Hi,” Cho said weakly, twisting the cuff of her sweater in her fingers.

Fleur looked around her and ushered her inside her flat.

“What are you doing here? You should be in Hogwarts!” she chided as she led Cho into the sitting room. “You have your N.E.W.T.s soon!”

“I just needed to get out,” Cho said, wishing she had gone home instead. She was going to be in so much trouble when she went back. “Everything is just...I hate being there. I can’t concentrate on anything anymore.”

Fleur made a tutting sound and guided her over to the sofa. “Wait here, I will make you some tea. Then we will talk.”

Cho nodded and rubbed furiously at her eyes when Fleur left the room. She hadn’t been entirely sure Fleur would let her in. Things had been strained and distant since the papers had starting printing stories about her and Harry. Fleur never asked about it in her letters, or when they’d meet up for tea in Hogsmeade during that year, or when they spent time together in the holidays after, but Cho knew it was the cause of their tension.

Her thoughts often lingered on that kiss Fleur had given her the first time she visited her house. But there had not been another, and really, Fleur kissed everyone so it probably hadn’t meant anything. Cho hadn’t even realised she wanted it to mean anything until she was kissing Harry under some mistletoe and wishing for a moment that it was Fleur instead.

And now everything was a mess. Marietta was still angry with her about her association with Harry, particularly since she still had ‘sneak’ spelled in pimples over her face. Harry wouldn’t even look at her, and she couldn’t really look at him either. They had been a mess and she wished she’d known what she wanted sooner so they could have at least been friends.

Sometimes she felt that all she had left was Fleur, but Fleur was so far away most of the time, and still so confusing to be around at times.

“Here we are,” Fleur said, pulling Cho from her thoughts some time later, carrying a tea tray with fine china and putting it down on the coffee table. “I can put a little something in it if you would like, you are of age now.”

Cho shook her head and poured herself a cup of tea with shaking hands. Alcohol would only make this all worse. She had spent so much time thinking through everything that year, before that even, right from when she’d kissed Harry and tried dating him and only wished he was Fleur. She should have said something then, but what?

Fleur had never kissed her again like that, for all Cho knew, it was a harmless gesture to her.

Or if it hadn’t been, what had Cho done? She’d gone and dated Harry Potter just a few months later.

The whole time she and Fleur had been close, Cho had been a mess over a boy. First Cedric, then Harry. Trying and failing to figure out what she wanted from them.

But she thought often of that kiss. She still collected feathers. Her Patronus was a swan.

“Are you cold?” Fleur asked softly, touching the back of her left hand gently. “You are shaking.”

Cho put her teacup down so hard she sloshed tea everywhere. “Why did you kiss me that time in my bedroom,” she asked before she lost her nerve.

Fleur’s friendship meant the world to her, but N.E.W.T.s were mere weeks away. She couldn’t focus, and every time she saw Harry it threw her off for the whole day. When she went to her room to study, she saw the feathers and couldn’t concentrate for thoughts of Fleur.

She had to know. She had to figure it out.

Fleur watched her silently for a moment before sighing and looking away. “Oh, Cho,” she said softly.

Cho waited, but she didn’t say anything more. “What?” she prompted. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t then, but I didn’t know until I kissed Harry, and then everything was a mess and, I just...”

Fleur pressed the heel of one palm to her own forehead and sighed again. “I would not have done it if I thought it would haunt you so,” she said. “After you and Cedric chose to be friends, I wondered. And you were always so...and the feathers, you kept all the feathers...I could not help myself, and it was innocent enough for you to brush aside if you were not interested. And then there was Harry...I did not want to get in the way of your happiness by confusing you, so I did not bring it up. I thought that was for the best.”

A fluttery sensation filled Cho’s stomach. “When I kissed Harry I wanted it to be you,” she whispered, afraid to say it out loud for the way it showed how horrible she was, but unable to stop herself.

Fleur met her eye and then looked away again just as quickly. “You are still so young, you are confused.”

“I _am_ confused,” Cho said, rather more irritably than she wanted to. Fleur was just less than two years older than her after all. She had no right to be calling her so young. “You don’t seem confused.”

Fleur leaned back against the back of the couch. “No, I have never been confused about the way I feel for you. Only about how you feel in return. Only about how to act around you. The distance makes that easier, but I miss you so when you are gone to Hogwarts.”

Cho inhaled slowly. She’d talked with other girls enough to understand what that all meant, even if for them it was always boys.

“You like girls,” she said. Fleur liked _her_.

Fleur sighed again. “I thought you knew. They were all talking about it that year at Hogwarts. Some of the girls from Beauxbatons, they told others. They were jealous I was Champion. I did not mind, I was not hiding it. They talked about us too.”

For a moment, Cho was thrown back to the way Marietta had always grumbled that year about the way people were talking about her friendship with Fleur. All that time, she’d thought she had meant her befriending another school’s Champion.

“I didn’t know,” she uttered, surprised at herself for being so dense.

Fleur took one of her hands gently. “I am so sorry, Cho,” she said. “I never wanted to hurt you, but I see I have. I have confused you and made everything more difficult.”

Cho shook her head quickly. “No. _No_!” she said firmly. “I just didn’t realise until lately. I mean, I should have. Everything the other girls said they felt about boys was how I thought of you, but I just never...”

“A lot has happened these past few years,” Fleur said delicately. “With Cedric, and with Harry. With Hogwarts. It is not your fault.”

Cho shook her head again. They were going to talk in circles, she could see it starting again.

“Would you kiss me again?” she asked, far more bravely than she felt. “Or has that passed now? Did I ruin that with Harry last year?”

Fleur sighed and moved closer to her on the sofa. She reached out and gently stroked her cheek. “No, you could never ruin anything,” she murmured.

Cho’s breath caught in her throat. She leaned closer. Fleur sighed and closed the gap. It was more than that kiss in her bedroom. It went on, and on. Softly, gently.

When they parted, Fleur had produced a soft feather from nowhere. She tucked it behind Cho’s ear with a sigh.

“As much as I would love for you to stay, you must go back to Hogwarts,” she said. “Quickly, before they notice you are gone.”

Cho didn’t want to go, but Fleur had her standing in front of the fireplace before she knew it.

“Go to the Three Broomsticks and then up to the castle from there,” she said firmly. “After your exams we will see what comes of this, alright?”

Exams where the last thing she wanted to think about. “But—”

“No arguments, my love,” Fleur said, covering her mouth with a finger to silence her. “You only have your exams once. I will be waiting for you when you are done.”

After another kiss, leaving was a blur. On the walk from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts, Cho pulled the feather from behind her ear and brushed it over her lips. It smelled of Fleur’s perfume.

**5 - In Defence – The Battle of Hogwarts**

“There you are!” Fleur gasped, appearing from behind the Death Eater she had just cursed. He staggered about for a moment before falling, but she paid him no further mind as she rushed over to Cho. “I thought I had lost you!”

Cho pulled her close and kissed her quickly. There wasn’t any time. They would be separated again.

“Try and stay close, but worry about yourself not me if we get separated again,” she urged, looking around and readying herself.

“You silly woman,” Fleur chided as she linked their arms. “I could not live without you.”

Cho didn’t have time to respond. The wall of the corridor collapsed ahead of them. Death Eaters poured in from nowhere. There was no time to move as curses hurtled towards them.

In the space between breaths, she accepted their death. A second later, there were feathers everywhere.

**+1 - With Trust - Post-Battle of Hogwarts**

By the time Fleur finally showed her, Cho had too many feathers for their bookshelves. She began to find them here and there all the time. She woke with them in her hair. She found them tucked into her things. They always smelled of Fleur’s perfume, and she always brushed them across her lips before putting them away.

When she walked down the aisle, she had them worked into her dress and hair. It was a surprise, and Fleur had wiped away tears when she saw.

But Cho had yet to see the wings they came from.

It was after the Battle of Hogwarts that she’d realised. She hadn’t seen much then, just a flurry of feathers accompanied by a loud and terrifying shriek like that of a bird of prey. She’d been pushed back and down to the ground and by the time she had picked herself back up to look, the Death Eaters were dead and the feathers were gone. But after, when she’d had time to think, it was so obvious.

It was stupid, really, how she hadn’t realised sooner. One of the first things she’d heard about Fleur was that she was part-Veela.

As the years went by, Fleur got less and less careful about hiding them. Cho woke to feel soft feathers against her skin. The moment she moved they were gone, maybe one or two loose ones lingering after, and always one soon tucked behind her ear.

She never asked. They never talked about it. She recalled Fleur’s words about not wanting to be an Animagus, hating the idea of being forced to be an animal she didn’t not want to be. She could read between the lines. She remembered the way Fleur couldn’t look at her properly for weeks after saving them from those Death Eaters, even though Cho hadn’t seen much, even though it had happened so fast.

She waited. She didn’t push.

When she caught a glimpse, she never reacted. She wore Fleur’s feathers with pride. Woven into her hair, worked into jewellery.

One day Fleur came home from work while Cho was tidying a bookshelf. She hugged Cho from behind and sighed into her hair. Feathers brushed along Cho’s arms. They filled her vision until she was cocooned by them.

She finally saw Fleur’s wings, and they were beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Another note: Canon says Veela wings are scaly but screw that, I made them feathered to fit the story I wanted to tell. Canon is silent about whether part-Veela can transform and throw balls of fire so I'm deciding they can and that's how Fleur destroyed those Death Eaters during the battle XD
> 
> And that's that longest wlw I've ever posted online, so I'm feeling rather proud of myself rn =)


End file.
